CorydorasEthan

I have a long list of my confessions: The first time I kept a fish tank, I didn't cycle, overstocked on the first day, and added the whole bag of fish and water into the tank. This ended up killing almost all the fish, and I still feel guilty for their deaths. I overstock my current aquarium because I feel like I need every type of Corydoras I come across. I don't follow the "one inch per gallon rule" as I believe it is not very accurate. Despite my opinion that there are better stocking rules, I don't follow any and just kind of estimate how many fish I can keep (of course, I do quite a bit of research). I get very annoyed and angry at people who don't keep Corydoras in groups of more than three, yet I always seem to "rescue" lonely corys (only cory in their tank) from the pet shop and don't have enough space in my tank to provide them a sufficient amount of members to fit their social needs. This leads me to just keep a couple of each type, breaking my own rules. I get mad with my siblings or parents when they walk loudly next to the aquarium, as the vibrations and shadows "scare" the pygmy corys and the young SAEs. Another overstocking problem, I always think fish or other tank inhabitants are the solution to every problem I have. Hair algae? Amano Shrimp! Black beard algae? SAEs! Pest snails? Loaches or Assassin snails! Shy fish? More schooling fish! and so on. I never get rid of these "cleaner fish" so end up with an overstocked tank half full of cleaning crews (in my 29 gallon I have Amano shrimp, bristlenose pleco, SAEs, assassin snails, and was planning on getting Otocinlus, but now realize that would be WAY too many fish, especially with my various corys, guppies, and gourami I already have). I always say when I want to upgrade my tank size "this is the biggest it's going to get, I won't need/want a tank any bigger" to my parents, yet I always seem to want more and more. I have gone from a 2.5 gallon to a 29 gallon due to this. Also because of this constant want for more fish, I always try to bend the rules of my parents (getting an extra "breeding tank" for the guppies I already have but also planning on getting some habrosus corys for that tank), or bending my own rules, like "Oh I can fit that new fish I found at the LFS in if I sell these off" and then don't sell anybody off and overstock the tank. Lastly, I don't know if this is bad, but I feel responsible for the deaths of all my fish, and always blame it on myself when anyone dies. My belief is that since the fish are under my care, it is my full responsibility to make sure that they have the best chance at living, even though I know it isn't possible to save all of them. This is why I don't like it when even baby guppies are eaten by other fish in the tank, and I try not to keep anything that will eat them in the tank. One exception is with pest snails. I am fine letting Assassin snails eat them, but not removing them manually from the tank and throwing them out to suffocate or something like that.

I water change once a week. I agree all my corys are a lot more active during and after a water change because they like to play in the current and look for food in the debris that it unearthed. Do you think taking out some young Endler's livebearers (they breed a lot) and adding in a type of tetra as a dither fish or more pygmy corys would work?

Hello everyone, Ever since I rearranged the decor in my 29 gallon fish tank (it's been maybe two months or more), my school of 5 pygmy corys don't come out hardly ever. They always are hiding under their favorite log and rocks. They will venture out a little during feeding, but always stay under or near the shadow of the log. This is confusing to me, because before I rearranged the decor in the tank, they would always be out and about. Also, I only have other types of corys, a bristlenose pleco, a pearl gourami (just added in a week ago), and some Endler's livebearers in the tank. Any suggestions on how to get the pygmy corys to be less shy?

I took this photo at the pet store. Blue opaline gourami.

I like to talk to my corys when I give them food. Sometimes I scold them, like whenever I open the lid to my tank, one of my albino corys always seems to think it's a good time to come up to the surface to breath (she swims really fast to the surface) and makes a splash that gets the floor wet as she breathes. I also scold my pearl gourami for picking on the corys when it's feeding time.

I have kept C. paleatus, C. aeneus, and C. trilineatus (julii cory) on standard gravel and they did just fine. Right now I have C. paleatus, C. aeneus, and C. pygmaeus on sand substrate. They seem to like the sand better, as it allows them to dig around in it. I would say do vaccuum the tank. Even if you only did it every two weeks or so, I don't think it would harm the cory barbels. You might want to check though to see how sharp the substrate is. If it is too sharp, the corys will eventually hurt their barbels.

I don't know much about goldfish, but I do know that panda corys and goldfish don't have the same temperature requirements. Goldfish will do fine without a heater in the tank, but panda corydoras need around 77 degrees fahrenheit (around 25 degrees celsius). Also, if you do plan on keeping panda corys in the future, keep them in larger groups, as they are schooling fish and enjoy company. In the end, you might want to just stick with goldfish and snails of some sort in the new tank, as golfish can grow pretty large, and have different temperature requirements from most of the other fish you may find at the pet store. Hope this helps.

Do you have the Corydoras in your tank yet? If so, don't put salt into the tank if you have them. I read they are very sensitive to salt.

In the wild, Corydoras can be found in groups of hundreds or even thousands. With this information, one can presume that all Corydoras need to be in groups of their own kind - preferably six or more of a single type - to school or shoal nicely and to interact and behave naturally with one another. One exception to the rule of six or more is albinos and bronze/greens, because they are the same species (unless you have albino paleatus so put those with peppers). This allows you to mix several albinos with several bronzes to meet the same interaction and social needs of the cory. The only downside to this is that the albinos might not be able to breed with the bronzes (at least in my case). I have several albino females and a male bronze cory (all aeneus). They spawn frequently, but the eggs are never fertile. Other people may have other experiences so I would check with them as well. I, however, despite doing a lot of research on keeping Corydoras, still can't seem to abide by the own rules I suggest others to follow. In my 29 gallon currently, I have 2 adult paleatus corys, 4 baby paleatus corys (their offspring), 1 bronze cory, 2 albino corys, and 5 pygmy corys. Because this is the only tank I am allowed to keep (with the exception of my 10 gallon breeding tank that I am about to set up), I wanted to have as many types of corys as possible, as they are my favorite fish. These fish (besides the babies and pygmies) are all fish I found were alone in their LFS tanks, with no other corys at all. This "lonely cory" situation, as I call it, is mostly why I keep multiple types of corys in less-than-ideal group sizes, as I wanted them to have a more social life with more corys to interact with, even if they are varied species. As a solution to this problem, I found breeding my corys that are the same species helps to increase the school size. In terms of behavior, all my corys do fine, but only the albinos and bronze seem to be quite active. Everyone else seems to rest/hide during the day, and only come out actively during feeding time and during the night. I have seen my group of five pygmy corys schooling or shoaling around together tightly near the front of my aquarium occasionally, but they are very shy otherwise. To summarize, try to keep several of one species of Corydoras and they will do just fine. If you wanted them to properly school together and exibit natural behavior, I would get around 6 or more. Thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope it helps.

Yes I heard that labyrinth fishes and cichlids work well as "predatory" community fish. Thanks for the advice!

Thanks! Glad you liked it! I look forward to sharing more of my experiences in the future.

This is my profile picture, but I guess it's easier to see. Peppered Corydoras (Corydoras paleatus)

Hello everyone! I am new here, so I guess I'll tell you guys a little about my experience and my aquariums. I started to get interest in the hobby around 3 years ago. Back then, I had not kept any fish tanks before, and my parents would not allow me to get one. Because of this, I found enjoyment on simply researching on fish and drawing out different aquarium layouts, setups, and stocking (if you want to see any of my sketches just ask and I'll try and post them. They are not too great or professional by any means, but I just find enjoyment sharing my ideas with others). Finally, after two years, my parents allowed me to get a fish tank. Originally, their plan was for me to get a 2.5 gallon tank we found at a garage sale for a betta fish. Thankfully, I convinced them to let me buy a 10 gallon tank instead. PHASE I: THE BEGINNING: I started it up and filled the tank with black gravel and fake plants, then quickly stocked it with 2 Dwarf Gourami, 6 Neon Tetras, and 3 Peppered Corydoras. Unfortunately, I had no experience buying fish back then, did not cycle my aquarium for more than a day, and the PetSmart employee put them all in the same bag (I don't know if this did any harm to them though). I emptied the whole bag, water and all, into my aquarium. Due to my lack of experience, all the fish save a cory catfish and some tetras died in a matter of weeks. After this, I went about a little more cautious, adding in my fish much more slowly. Stocking for this phase: 2 Dwarf Gourami, 6 Neon Tetra, 3 Peppered Cory PHASE II: "SOUTH AMERICAN" COMMUNITY TANK: I wanted to go with a South American theme, so I wanted cory catfish and tetras. I was planning on buying two more peppered corydoras to befriend the remaining one left in my tank, but I couldn't resist the lonely Julii cory at the PetSmart as well. So I eventually stocked my 10 gallon with 2 Peppered Corydoras, 1 Julii Corydoras, 3 Von Rio Flame Tetras, 3 Neon Tetras, and 1 Assassin Snail (for the pond/bladder snail problem that was arising in my aquarium). Despite not in ideal groups sizes, most of the fish did absolutely fine in this setup. This tank crashed when I tried to introduce a tiny baby bristlenose pleco from PetSmart. I didn't realize this little fish had (IchIchthyophthirius multifiliis), and it passed away within a few days. Before I knew it, the tetras were all infected with the disease. I tried getting rid of it using JUNGLE ICK CURE FIZZING TABLETS (or something like that sorry I forgot the exact name), but this only seemed to kill my fish off more quickly. The family favorite, the Julii cory, died one morning along with some tetras before one of my school days, and my mother and I were heartbroken. After this tragic disease, not one fish survived except for Turbo the Assassin Snail (my dad named him). Stocking for this phase: 2 Peppered Cory, 1 False Julii Cory, 3 Neon Tetra, 3 Von Rio Flame Tetra, 1 Assassin Snail PHASE III: THE ENLIGHTENMENT/PLANTED BREEDING TANK: After waiting a while before starting up again, I decided to change my gravel color from black to the more natural mixed gravel color. By this point, I was fed up with PetSmart, and I had recently discovered my Local Fish Store (where I got my Assassin Snail) and decided to get live plants from them this time. I put in Cabomba as well as Hornwort, Water Wisteria, Guppy Grass, and Duckweed (unintentional). I stocked the tank with what I thought were guppies (they were really Endler's Livebearers, but my fish store didn't identify them correctly). I got three of them and what looked like a guppy/Endler hybrid or maybe a Scarlet Livebearer (Micropoecilia picta) male. Also, we have my favorites, Corydoras. I looked for them at my Local Store, but could only find a couple scattered throughout several tanks. So I brought those lonely Corydoras home (you'll see I have a habit of trying to "rescue" lonely fish, mostly Corydoras, from Pet Store tanks), puchasing one Peppered Cory female and two Albino Cory females (I thought they were males at the time, so I named them Merry and Pippin). As you can tell, my guppy/Endlers started to reproduce fast, and soon my tank was full of them (and pest snails, even though Assassin Snail Turbo was working as hard as he could to eat them). Afraid the baby guppies would take up too much room and dissolved oxygen, I sold them back to my LSF (local fish store, sorry if you already knew this) and bought more Assassin Snails, and a lonely peppered cory and green cory. Stocking for this phase: 2 Peppered Cory, 2 Albino Cory, 1 Green Cory, 3 Endler's Livebearer, Many Endler's Livebearer young, 1 Unknown Livebearer spec., 4 Assassin Snail, Many pest snails PHASE IV: THE AGE OF TRUMPET SNAILS: At this point, I was kind of done with live plants, as they kept dying on me, so I put some more plastic plants in. Unfortunately, there was one baby Endler's livebearer that I didn't catch, and it turned out to be a female. So eventually it started producing more babies with the male I already had (I sold off all the adult females). It had one baby that turned out to be a male, and I sold off the female. My corydoras did very well still. None had any problems. It was the snails that were the real problems in this tank. Eventually, Malaysian Trumpet Snails (even though I tried to get rid of them) went from 2 individuals to way over 200 in a few months. My Assassin Snails could hardly keep up. Fortunately, my Assassin Snails had been laying eggs under the gravel, and soon the Assassin Snails had an army of their own. Over a period of a few months, the Trumpet Snails were pretty much gone. My what-looked-like-a-Scarlet Livebearer died of unknown causes right before the next "phase". Stocking for this phase: 2 Peppered Cory, 2 Albino Cory, 1 Green Cory, 3 Endler's Livebearer, 1 Unknown Livebearer spec., 4 Assassin Snail, many young Assassin Snail, many MTS. PHASE V: THE NEW & IMPROVED COMMUNITY TANK: I finally was able to get a 29 gallon tank in my room as well, partly due to the fact that I had lost my guinea pig Daniel (he and I were very close) a year earlier. My dad helped me build a stand for the tank and I used pool filter sand as substrate. (QUICK TIP: when using pool filter sand as substrate, always rinse very well, as it clouded up my water very badly). After taking care of this, I let my tank cycle for a week or two before adding fish. In this setup I used plastic plants, my Java Fern (I planted a bit of a mysterious floating plant in my 10 gallon and it grew very big, even in my gravel), driftwood, and river rocks. For fish, I had all the fish and some of the snails from my previous tank. In addition, I purchased a Bristlenose Plecostomus and a school of 5 Pygmy Corydoras. Along with the pleco, a small true guppy fry had also accidentally added to the bag, so she made her home in my 29 gallon as well. Stocking for this phase: 2 Peppered Cory, 2 Albino Cory, 1 Green Cory, 5 Pygmy Cory, 2 Endler's Livebearer, 1 Guppy Fry, 1 Bristlenose Pleco, several Assassin Snail, 3 Amano Shrimp. PHASE VI: FAKE PLANTS & BREEDING CORYDORAS: Before I knew it, my Peppered Corydoras began to breed (lucky me, there was one male and one female). I put their eggs in a small 0.5 gallon tank for them to hatch, but all the eggs got fungus. I was very disappointed, and was going to throw out the eggs/fungus mush when I saw one little baby peppered cory. I quickly put him into my 29 with the other fish. Desperate to succeed at a full batch, I made sure that I collected as many of the eggs as possible the next time they spawned. I made sure that the eggs were farther apart so that they wouldn't catch fungus as easily. Soon enough I had over 30 peppered cory babies. I put them in a breeding basket in the main tank. As time went on, they all grew, except some died of unknown causes. With them getting bigger (they were still very small though), I made the horrible decision to put them into the main tank. After a couple of weeks, I saw none save three babies. I don't know the cause of their deaths, but it is likely one of the following: 1) getting eaten - I don't know who could have because as you see in the stocking I have no predators in the tank, 2) starvation - maybe the competition for food was too high, or 3) disease/malformity - they could have had some kind of disease or deformity that I did not know about. While, if anyone has an idea on what happened to these poor babies, please leave it down below. I would really like to know if I could save the whole litter next time. Stocking: The stocking for this setup did not change at all from the previous setup, except for adding in the baby corydoras and I lost one Amano Shrimp. PHASE VII: THE AGE OF ALGAE: Because of my lack of live plants and my high intensity light (I think it's high intensity, but I can't be sure I am terrible when it comes to choosing the right equipment), hair algae and black beard algae began to take over my tank. The Plecostomus took no interest in eating this type, so I purchased some Amano Shrimp and an Amazon Sword in hopes of combating the algae. This did not help much though, and the Amazon Sword was quickly overtaken. The Amano Shrimp had cleared their favorite log of hair algae, but didn't do much more, instead opting to eat the tastier shrimp pellets that I feed to the catfish. Stocking: The stocking for this setup did not change at all from the previous setup PHASE VIII: THE NEW PLANTED COMMUNITY TANK: While this is the stage I am currently in. I added in plants from my LFS such as Cabomba, but also ordered a sponge filter, a dwarf hairgrass, vallisneria, and cryptocoryne wendetii to the tank. I also added in Siamese Algae Eaters and a Pearl Gourami to my tank. Right now, everyone is doing fine, and the guppy has hybridized with the male Endlers, so I am excited to see what the babies will look like when grown up. I think my tank is slightly if not very overstocked though, so I am thinking of removing all of the Endler/Guppy hybrids and adult female guppy to my stagnant 10 gallon when I get it started up. Even then, I think the bottom of my tank is still going to be very crowded with all the bottom dwellers and algae eaters. Anyway, I'll cover the issues on this current setup in posts later on. Thanks for reading!